“Better things aren’t possible”
It’s become clear, time and again, that the Democratic party’s “anyone but our opponent” playbook doesn’t work. People want to vote for someone, not against someone. Obama’s 2008 win proved that. Yet, democrats reverted back to their failed strategy in 2016, and they’re repeating it now. The big question is if 2020’s earth-shattering events made worse by Trump’s lazy incompetence are enough to push Biden’s Weekend at Bernie’s-style campaign over the finish line.
It’s pretty clarifying to see that 170,000 dead Americans, 11% unemployment and an economy in tatters still doesn’t guarantee a Biden win.
I’ve spent my entire adulthood dutifully voting for someone who is ideologically far to my right. When I’ve suggested that hey, it would be cool to have a candidate with some real left values, I’ve been condescendingly derided for being naive and unrealistic.
“This is the real world,” I’m told. “You have to put aside ideological purity lest we fall victim to fascist, authoritarian white supremacists.” So I did. And wouldn’t you know it, we fell victim to fascist, authoritarian white supremacists anyway.
I’m going to vote for Joe Biden because I hope a Biden presidency will at least tone down the vast cruelty our state apparatus has ramped up against immigrants, BIPOC, the trans community, and literally all immunocompromised people.
But do I expect any actual structural changes? Ha!
Just once in my life, it would be cool to vote for someone who believes better things are possible. Biden has said his candidacy would be a “return” to how things were. I understand the appeal. But “how things were” are what lead to how things are now. Trump isn’t an aberration. He’s a symptom. And the next Trump will be even worse! Imagine the damage a competent Trump would inflict!
Yes, it is important to beat Trump. But it is also important to fundamentally change the conditions that lead to Trump in the first place. Imagine an America with Medicare for all, an America with a robust unemployment safety net. Imagine an America where higher education doesn’t result in lifelong debt. An America where a trip to the ER doesn’t require a GoFundMe campaign, where housing is treated as a human right, rather than an investment opportunity for the super rich. Where billionaires are treated as the supervillains they are, rather than aspirational figures.
Maybe a country that does not crush its citizens under the boots of capital is a country that does not elect a narcissistic real estate grifter with strong-man aspirations in the first place.
And we haven’t even discussed the voter suppression yet!
Two of the last three American presidents were undemocratically installed. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 3 million. Such an electoral chasm in any other country would be rightly condemned by the international community.
I am voting in New York State, which means my vote is symbolic at best. I will be part of the popular majority who votes for Joe Biden and then watches helplessly as Trump is sworn in for his 2nd term.
Fixing our broken “democracy” would require two steps: Make Washington DC and Puerto Rico states, and abolish the electoral college. In the slim chance that Biden is able to peel off Florida or Pennsylvania and win, do we really think his administration will do anything to accomplish either of those goals?
A status quo Biden administration will limp through 4 years of economic austerity as the GOP suddenly remembers it cares about deficits, and the dems go along with them to not appear weak. Perhaps we get a vaccine and life returns to some semblance of “normal.” Well, life was “normal” under Obama, and we still got Trump. Do you really think a “normal” life that is economically less stable under Biden won’t lead to the next Trump?
